If you are looking for hope from me, today is not the day. For several days, I have debated whether or not to write about my feeling that this week might have marked the end of American Democracy… or rather, if some day in the future I might look back on this week and say, “Yes, that was when the myth of American Democracy was exposed”. I was driving in my car when I heard the Supreme Court had decided that corporations have First Amendment rights, creating a nearly unlimited right for corporations to spend money to directly influence American electoral politics.
I turned the radio off NPR, and put in my CD of the New Testament. I remember thinking, “Well, it’s not like my caring about politics has much of a point anymore, does it?” I hope I don’t stay in this mental and spiritual space, but after the Supreme Court decision, I feel like my rights as an American Citizen have been stripped away. For what value is an individual’s right to free speech when there is little to no hope of being listened to? At least, not by those who make policy in this country.
You can turn on the television, or even listen to the speech the President made regarding this Supreme Court decision, and hear the doom and gloom… you don’t need it from me. At least the President is good at finding some way to bring hope. I just don’t feel it at the moment. Like a prophet of old, I can see the ramifications of this decision spreading out before us as a nation. The composition of the Supreme Court is unlikely to change for at least ten years, and by that point the damage will be done. Politicians will realize that they have much problems with generic imitrex more to fear in the next election from corporations than they do the American People. Corporations will realize that they no longer need to bribe candidates with donations… that it is much more effective to threaten them with opposition. Soon, corporations won’t even have to spend they money to control politicians… the threat that they could will be enough. Our political structures at all levels will become creatures of corporate interest. Individual Americans are, as of this week, no longer players in American public discourse. It will just take a while for us all to figure that out.
I know, some have claimed this to be true before… but before at least a veneer of our politics being the venue of the people had to be maintained. That veneer allowed for a mass public response that assisted in the election of President Obama. I believe that this Supreme Court decision would make the last election impossible to repeat. I fear that we will have a couple of elections where corporate interests wage campaigns against any politicians who believe they are still responsible to the American People, and then the political establishment will come to terms with just who their masters really are.
I know, this article does not sound like me. I know I’m reacting emotionally. I know I’m not sounding very “rational” at the moment. I’m not feeling rational. I’m somewhere between shock, angry, fearful, and hopeless.
I will say this though… as I was driving around to see my hospice patients this week, listening to the Gospel of Matthew on my car CD player, several stories took on new and different meanings because of the mental space that I am in…
Especially the one where Jesus came in and threw the moneychangers out of the temple.
Yours in Faith,
David
That’s a bit much. I’d say Obama drove the nail into campaign finance reform when he turned down fed funds in favor of his own fund raising in the last election.
Free speech is free speech, whether it comes from corporations, George Soro’s millions, or guys like us with blogs.
I wouldn’t want the Gov limiting what I could blog on or spend my dough…same right goes to Corps and Unions.
Bill,
Corporations are not individual persons, and they should not have the same rights as individual people. Protect the rights of individuals… not of corporations.
Especially not in an age when most of the largest corporations are international in their makup.
But you are, of course, entitled to your opinion. To paraphrase Francis David, I will defend to the death your right to be wrong… as an individual. I object when you enlist your multi-billion, multi-national corporation to threaten politicians into allowing you to enforce your being wrong on others.
Yours in Faith,
David
I think any association of people, whether a corporation, or a union, or what ever, should be free to spend their money to voice their opinions.
The thought of suppressing that speech scares me far more than the results of letting it happen.
I disagree that corporations are primarily “associations of people”. Corporations are primarily associations of business interests that government has allowed to incorporate to protect the personal assets of individual people who are associated with them.
In other words, the people involved are insulated from personal fiduciary responsibility for the failures of that corporation, except for how much of the corporation’s stock they might own.
If you or I use our freedom of speech in ways that endanger the lives of others (say, should fire in a crowded theatre) we can be held personally responsible for those actions. Those involved in a corporation cannot be held to that standard of public responsibility for the actions of corporations.
The freedom of speech is far from absolute… and all freedom must be balanced by a corresponding responsibility for its use. Corporations exist to protect the individuals involved with them from personal responsibility for the actions of the corporation… and because of that they should not be considered “persons” by the law nor granted that freedom.
There are times when the constitution needs to be amended… this is perhaps one of those times. But it will never happen because the weight of political power in this country has shifted away from the people.
Yours in Faith,
David
I’m with Glenn Greenwald on this one. First and second posts on the topic. On your points, the 4 dissenting justices all agreed that corporations can be treated as persons with First Amendments rights and that money is speech. Also, the First Amendment community was nearly equally divided on this decision.
I would add that a veneer is worse than a naked, but dispiriting, truth. On Obama’s election, he raised more corporate money, especially on Wall Street, than either Hillary or McCain. Since then, he’s made it perfectly clear that corporations don’t have anything to fear from him.
In general, another good points is that some corporations, such as GE and NewsCorp, have enormous “free” speech rights currently. Letting the ACLU spend money on an ad sounds good, doesn’t it? Finally, with YouTube and the like, ad distribution can very wide but be incredibly cheap. The TV market is incredibly fragmented. It is CW that ads work, but are they worth it?
Bill, although I agree with you on this one, can you leave George Soros out of it?
PS Who reads your NT CD?